Sabine Lichtenfels - in the Name of Grace
To all Peaceworkers,
Christmas is drawing closer. In the towns the shops are cashing in on this. Many people are driven by the rampant consumerism prevalent in our time, wanting to make other people feel that they are loved. They buy, they stress, the business is booming. The capitals are wrapped in glitter, a bombastic temptation. Who gives a thought to the craziness they all participate in while buying new jewelry, clothes, high-tec products or whatever it is for their loved ones? Who gives a thought to the parts of the globe that are suffering due to the laws of exploitation that are valid everywhere? Who thinks of possibilities to get out of this mode and enter into an entirely different way of making gifts? I give what I myself most long for. I give away my love, my presence, my compassion, I give away my loving power to a world I can love and want to love. I bestow upon the world my thoughts of peace and the power of peace coming from my heart.
Years ago, I received a new and different view of the Christmas story, a perspective from a female point of view. We call this view the "marian culture impulse". I quote from a text that was written during Advent in 2003. It is in this sense that I wish you a peaceful time - a time of the advent of peace.
Text of Empowerment: Rediscovering the natural contact between humans and God
By Sabine Lichtenfels: The New Marian Culture Impulse
Christmas is about rediscovering and celebrating the natural contact between humans and God. Through a new relationship between mothers and their sons, a new culture in which the human being understands his true importance can arise. Normally, mothers are always trying to keep exactly that aspect in their sons, which is actually big, small. But children are divine beings from the very beginning and they bring a great knowledge. It is knowledge from the world beyond. We women have to once more take on guardianship of this knowledge. Our children shall be allowed once more to tell what they remember from the world beyond. For far too long we have taken them far too quickly into our world, treating them as unknowing babies in need of education, instead of seeing and supporting their divine being.
In the history of patriarchy, mothers have wanted to make their sons into strong men far too early. They do not protect what actually needs to be protected in a child. They do not protect the birth of a new divine power. Mothers educate their sons to become functioning figures in a system in which God has no house and no home in the human being. The new cultural impulse in the child says: “I am very fragile and I need all your power of protection. Make your house into a home of the divine power.” And Mary knows what needs to be done, as she has pondered these words in her heart.
Sentence of Empowerment: We are divine beings.
With best wishes
Sabine Lichtenfels